mizzima.com-Mar 28
Fears have been voiced over the Myanmar junta’s preparations to hold “stage-managed” elections, with tensions rising and the danger the conflict in the country will worsen. The International Crisis Group (ICG) has just issued a report entitled: “A Road to Nowhere: The Myanmar Regime’s Stage Managed Elections” on 28 March – a day after the Myanmar junta held a celebration of Armed Forces Day in Naypyitaw – warning of the dangers of holding an illegal poll that will not represent the will of the people. The military regime in Myanmar has started laying the groundwork for elections, passing a new party registration law and updating the voter list. But with most of the country engulfed in civil war, and most citizens opposed to the poll, no regime-run vote can be viewed as credible.
Myanmar’s most popular party, the National League for Democracy (NLD), is boycotting the process, with many of its leadership including Aung San Suu Kyi and former president Win Myint in jail, sentenced to lengthy terms, hiding in the country, or in exile. What is clear, states the ICG report, is that the stage-managed elections will trigger escalated violence, with the regime using the polls as a pretext for intensifying its counter-insurgency operations. Read more at: https://www.mizzima.com/article/icg-report-warns-dangers-posed-myanmar-junta-election
